Dave Doeren’s Postgame Press Conference After NC State’s Loss to BC: BULLETED

NC State Head Coach Dave Doeren met with the media for his postgame press conference tonight after NC State lost to Boston College 20-21. You can watch it here, or check out a BULLETED breakdown below.

• I don’t know really what to say. I’m pretty down for these kids.
• Obviously we didn’t play well enough to win. We didn’t coach well enough to win. I’ll always put that on me.
• Turning the ball over 3 times in the 2nd half changed the game in their favor.
• I hate it for these seniors. It’s a great group of young men. We didn’t get it done. Give Boston College some credit.
• At the same time, we had plays there.
  • We got stuffed on 4th-and-1 on the goal line in the 1st half.
  • I thought Drake [Thomas] made a fantastic play.
    • I’m disappointed that a flag was thrown on a play like that. I thought it was a bang-bang play to win the game.
    • I don’t know how you throw that flag. It’s a really disappointing call by that official.
  • But there were other plays in the game that we could have made that it wouldn’t have come down to that, and we didn’t.
    • Other calls we could have made. It’s going to be a tough night. We’ll get back together tomorrow and regroup and work hard to finish.
• We were 2 of 12 on 3rd down. I think that was the biggest thing.
  • They were doing a good job in coverage.
    • We had a hard time getting open. We tried to get open a couple of times down the field and gave up some sacks.
  • Their defensive end [Donovan Ezeiruaka] beat us multiple times.
  • If you turn the ball over 3 times and can’t convert on 3rd down, it’s hard to find a rhythm.
  • We were in negative-yardage situations several times in the 2nd half.
  • We did a poor job after those first 2 scores.
• It hurts [Grant Gibson’s injury late in the 1st half].
  • Grant has played more football on this team than anybody on our roster.
  • He’s a leader. He’s a 3-time captain.
  • It hurt not having him in the middle. Dylan [McMahon] had to move inside. That’s obviously a key loss in the game.
• I just told him [MJ Morris] that he’s going to learn a lot from this film. He’s going to learn a ton watching it tomorrow.
  • He’ll grow from it. He’ll be better as he moves forward.
  • These kinds of mistakes are going to happen with a young quarterback.
  • There were a lot of them, but not just on him. It wasn’t just things that he did.
  • There’s things that could have been done to help him more.
    • That’s a thing we’ve done really well the last 2 games. We helped him. We protected for him. We got open. We made plays.
    • It just didn’t happen tonight. He’ll definitely learn from that experience. He’ll grow from it and be better because of it.
• They’re incredible people [this Senior class]. Incredible.
  • I love every one of them. I’m thankful that they’ve been in my life. I’m blessed to be their coach.
  • I hate that we didn’t get that win for them tonight.
  • They’ve done a ton for NC State and this program.
  • They’re going to have very successful lives because of the people that they are, not just the players. They are incredible people.